101 Inspirational Quotes and Sayings on How to Deal with Failure

Are you looking for some inspirational quotes on how to deal with failure?

Do you feel like your goals and plans have all fallen apart, and you’re looking to get your confidence back? Maybe you’re afraid of failure and therefore just plain stuck. 

Here’s the good news.

I know. You’ve heard it before. You always learn from your mistakes and failures. Your eyes are already glazing over.

BUT…….. It’s TRUE if you frame things differently.

Failure is painful. When you make a mistake, you cringe. Your skin gets red hot and flushed with embarrassment when you mess up, and there’s that twinge in your stomach.

These are perfectly normal feelings, and you’re not alone. Many people are afraid to do something new in their business or life because of the possibility of failure.

I don’t know many, well, any people who shout with glee, “Yay, I made a mistake today!”

I’ve been there too many times to count, and then I’m hard on myself and absolutely sure that I should give up because I’m such a failure.

The bigger the failure, the most profound the shame. However, who taught us that mistakes are failures and shameful? Society? Family pressure?

I Was a Work from Home Failure When I Started

In my quest to find a job to work from home because of my health issues and to regain control of my life, I tried for any non-phone job that I could find.

Work as a police officer doesn’t necessarily translate into the work from home world easily.

Someone suggested transcriptionist, but I only typed an average typing speed (or if I’m completely honest, less ?).

I tried a job as an Internet Analyst for Leapforce. Sounds pretty cool, right? No, I failed miserably.

How can I ever run a business working from home if I can’t do that job?

But I did learn a lesson. Frame things differently.

I asked myself what I learned from that job, and it was simple yet profound.

I learned that it wasn’t the job for me, and it lead me to start my freelance writing career which was the right career for me.

The most successful people tell you that they aim to fail at least weekly. They found what didn’t work and adapted whatever they were working on accordingly.

And thanks to that we have electricity, phones, the internet, and many other innovative services and products that all started with famous failures. 

So, keep that in mind and read these quotes for some inspiration on how to deal with failure and turn it into a success. These are some of the best failure into success quotes.

Thomas Edison said it best; “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Kind of like old Thomas Edison was implying here, the key is your response to failure. Lack of success now in no way implies that you won’t have future success. 

Get ready for 101 Quotes about overcoming failure. Some accept it, some put a positive spin on it, while others take comfort in that the experience they gained made them wiser and more successful in the long run.

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Military Leaders

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

4. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. Colin Powell

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill

6. We failed, but in the good providence of God, apparent failure often proves a blessing. Robert E. Lee

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Male Entrepreneurs

I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.

J. Paul Getty

Related: How to Choose the Best Profitable Niche for Your Blog and Business

9. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. – Henry Ford

12. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.  – Jim Rohn

A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature.

J. Paul Getty

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them, and start again. –Richard Branson

15. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you’re not innovating enough. – Elon Musk

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

Bill Gates

I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

Tony Robbins

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Athletes

19. You gotta lose ’em some of the time. When you do, lose ’em right. – Casey Stengel

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

Muhammad Ali

You have to be able to accept failure to get better. – Lebron James

22. I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. –  Michael Jordan

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

Wilma Rudolph

24. Failure is not fatal, but failure to might be. – John Wooden

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.

Mia Hamm

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Academics

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

Albert Einstein

29. You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give. – E. O. Wilson

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

Albert Einstein

31. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure. – Thomas A. Edison

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. – Benjamin Franklin

Restlessness is discontent, and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

Thomas A. Edison

34. It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. – Charles Kettering

35. One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them. -Thomas Sowell

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

Michel de Montaigne

38. One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must, therefore, be treated like a king. – Abraham Maslow

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Motivational Speakers and Spiritual Leaders

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.

Norman Vincent Peale

To establish true self-esteem, we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.

Denis Waitley

42. Sometimes the best gain is to lose. – George Herbert

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success. – Parmahansa Yogananda

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

Denis Waitley

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Writers and Artists

46. All the world loves a good loser. Kin Hubbard

If at first, you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.

Quentin crisp

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

Jack Kerouac

The only risk of failure is promotion. – Scott Adams

Success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone.

Deepak Chopra

All human actions are equivalent… and all are on principle doomed to failure.

Carl Sandburg

53. A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. – John Burroughs

Mistakes are the portals to discovery. – James Joyce

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes… we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions – especially selfish ones.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure, but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try. – Nikki Giovanni

57. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. – Napoleon Hill

They who have conquered doubt and fear have conquered failure.

James Allen

My life has been nothing but a failure. – Claude Monet

61. I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success. – Paulo Coelho

It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

J. K. Rowling

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw

64. Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps, some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do. – Napoleon Hill

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.

Zig Ziglar

The wisest of the wise may err. – Aeschylus

 My reputation grows with every failure.

George Bernard Shaw

68. Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. – Truman Capote

69. When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel. – Eloise Ristad

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

Zig Ziglar

There is no failure except in no longer trying. – Elbert Hubbard

73. I think you have to try and fail because failure gets you closer to what you’re good at. – Louis C.K.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failure.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.  

J. K. Rowling

The only failure one should fear is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

George Eliot

76. Remember that failure is an event, not a person. – Zig Ziglar

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. – Ernest Hemingway

78.  Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. – C. S. Lewis

79. There are many victories worse than a defeat. – George Eliot

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.

Zig Ziglar

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

82. Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. – George Eliot

83. But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. -Ernest Hemingway

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. – Oscar Wilde

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

George Eliot

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Directors, Actors, and Actresses

86.  If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. – Woody Allen

87. To err is human, but it feels divine. – Mae West

You always pass failure on your way to success. – Mickey Rooney

89. I fell off my pink cloud with a thud. – Elizabeth Taylor

I wasn’t afraid to fail. Something good always comes out of failure.

Anne Baxter

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Female Entrepreneurs

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel

94. For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. – Mary Kay Ash

Quotes on How to Deal with Failure from Presidents and Politicians

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

97. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.  – Theodore Roosevelt

98. The guns and the bombs, the rockets, and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. -Lyndon B. Johnson

Through perseverance, many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

Benjamin Disraeli

 Failure is impossible.

Susan B. Anthony

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail. -Jimmy Carter

We are All Works in Progress – Final Thoughts on How to Deal with Failure

I remembered what a Sergeant with the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office told me when I was just 21 and didn’t get hired for a road position.

He said, “Heather, you need life experience.” Wow. Then I realized that my failure was life experience.

He said, “Heather, you need life experience.” Wow. Then I realized that my failure was life experience.

Some people get the job they try for right away and for other’s it takes some extra time. It’s okay.

Failures and mistakes are lessons in life. Experiences that broaden our horizons and help us learn and grow as people.

We learn what we are good at and also what we aren’t so good at. If we didn’t have failures and mistakes, then we wouldn’t grow as people. We would stay stagnant and stuck.

If I hadn’t had the experience of losing that job, then I wouldn’t be who I am today. I would probably be working some part-time office job, and feeling stuck and never reach my full potential.

More importantly, I learned not to give up. As a result, it made me that much more determined to find the job for me and to grow as a writer, destined to help other people realize their dreams.

If you’re not feeling a little scared, or butterflies in the pit of your stomach then you’re goals aren’t big enough.

Ultimately, failure helps shape us and makes us who we are. It can help us fix bad habits and plan out each simple step that can lead us to success over a period of time. 

So, thank you for listening to my soul-crushing failure story that had a happy ending after all! It’s all how you look at things that matter.

Remember, failure is such a harsh word. Experience, not a failure. Keep fighting for your dream and know that there are other people out there that are going through the same thing you are.

Whether it’s weight loss, a failure business owners face, if you adopt a positive attitude you can succeed at anything.

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Learning how to deal with failure means reframing it as lessons learned and life experience.